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[quote=Anonymous]Glad to stumble upon this thread.
My DS is 11, and totally addicted to screens/video games. His behavior is that of an addict. He lies, he's secretive, he cannot stop himself from playing a video game once he starts. 
I tried the "let him play until he's sick of it" route, but that was a complete failure. He would play video games all day and all night, so that experiment ended quickly.
Once, when I accidentally left myself logged on, he snuck downstairs and played video games all night!
Now, I've limited his computer time to 30 minutes a day, and he has to use that time for homework. If he doesn't use if for homework, he gets no extra computer time, and his homework doesn't get done.
Fortunately, he does care about getting his homework done, so he uses his computer time for homework. But he's found ways around it. Just a couple days ago, he tricked DH into giving him extra time on the computer when I wasn't around to warn DH about his tricks (he did it to me a while ago too!), so he ended up spending hours on the computer playing video games.
My child is so addicted that even though we've blocked access to all video game sites, he's found out about a Google game played with images from Google (Atari something?), a shooting game, that he plays for hours whenever we accidentally give him computer access (he'll go on his sister's account if she leaves the room, for example).
I heard on NPR that the part of the brain stimulated by video games is the same part that is stimulated by addictions to drugs and alcohol. 
This really does not bode well for my child. DH's mother, cousin and several aunts are all alcoholics, and we know alcoholism has a genetic component. I've talked to DS about this, but at age 11, I'm not sure what, if anything, it means to him. He's seen his stupefied grandmother, so knows what alcohol does to a person, but he can't stop himself from playing video games, so we're keeping him away from them as best we can.
He does sports, plays an instrument and has other interests (clubs, Boy Scouts, etc.), but his biggest interest is screens (he loves videos and movies too).
I hate technology, really, really hate it. I think it's doing a real number on a lot of our kids, especially boys. His sister has no interest in screens or video games (I don't think she's ever played one). But he's hooked, and that really worries me. [/quote]

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